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2006年国际数学家大会前对话菲尔兹奖和阿贝尔奖得主Serre教授
(2006-08-22 22:04:43)| 分类： 数学科学及国内外知名数学家 |
-- I understand you’ve learned a lot by
yourself.
-- Unfortunately, I don’t learn much any
more.
-- Would you say that the mathematical education
that children receive today is good?
-- I know very little about it, because I have no
grandchildren.
-- What would you say to a young student of
mathematics?
-- A good student doesn’t need
advice.
-- How have mathematics developed over recent
decades?
-- The question is too ambitious.
I can’t comment on ‘the development of
mathematics’.
-- The dividing line between pure and applied
mathematics seems to becoming more and more diffuse.
Is this perception correct?
-- I wouldn’t say ‘diffuse’.
There is still a sharp distinction between a
theorem which is TRUE and statements which only give
approximations. On the other hand, applied
mathematics and computers can help more and more branches of pure
mathematics by suggesting results and disproving wrong
conjectures.
-- Have you seen some of your work being applied
to fields or areas you didn’t expect in the
beginning?
-- Not my own work, but some closely related to
it, such as elliptic curves (or even Abelian varieties) over finite fields: they’re
used in cryptography.
英文全文
Interview with Jean Pierre Serre, Fields Medal and Abel Prize
Winner
“A good student of mathematics doesn’t need
advice”
It is said that Jean Pierre Serre (1926, Bages,
France) is the typical mathematical genius who (of course) enjoys
working on a stimulating problem much more than having to talk
about his work or following a social life. But
there are other factors that belie this simple description:
Serre, described by his colleagues as a
“hero” or a “maestro”, also loves sport; some of his
favourite films are “Pulp Fiction”
and those by the Coen
brothers, and he is a devotee of the Harry Potter
saga.
Where his work is concerned, however, there have
been times when Serre – whether he
likes it or not – has been obliged to talk about
it. He already has seven scientific prizes to his
credit, two of them the highest awards in mathematics: he won the
Fields Medal when he was only 28 years old, and the Abel prize in
2003. Furthermore, he has been honoured with 11 doctorates honoris causa, in
addition to that conferred by the Complutense University of Madrid (April 27th).
Various interviewers have expressed interest in
his working methods, his sources of inspiration, and his opinions
about the development of
mathematics.
-- I understand you’ve learned a lot by
yourself.
-- Unfortunately, I don’t learn much any
more.
-- Would you say that the mathematical education
that children receive today is good?
-- I know very little about it, because I have no
grandchildren.
-- What would you say to a young student of
mathematics?
-- A good student doesn’t need
advice.
Other interviews have provided further
information. One of his replies in 1985(1) was
enough to make some mathematicians hot under the collar: [when
asked about how to encourage young people to take up mathematics]
“I have a theory on this, which is that one should first
discourage young people
from doing mathematics. There is no need for too
many mathematicians. But if after that they still
insist on studying mathematics, then one should indeed encourage
and help them. As for high school students, the
main point is to make them understand that mathematics exists, that it isn’t dead (they have
a tendency to think that the only open questions remaining are in
physics and biology). The defect in the
traditional way of teaching mathematics is that the teacher never
mentions these questions. That’s a
pity”.
He has also said that when he was an adolescent he
learned mathematics from a book of calculus belonging to his
mother: “At that time I had no idea that one could make a living
by being a mathematician. It was only later I
discovered that one could get paid for doing
mathematics”.
And this on his working methods: “Quite often you
don’t really try to solve a specific question by a head-on
attack. Rather you have some ideas in
mind, which you feel should be useful, but you don’t know what for
exactly. So you look around and try to apply
them. It’s like having a bunch of keys and
trying them on several doors”.
Serre prefers to speak about “thinking a lot” rather
than “effort”: “It is not the conscious part of the mind that
does the work,” he remarked on being awarded the Abel Prize(2). Perhaps that is why he
often works at night, in bed, in the dark: “When I’m half
asleep. The fact that you don’t have to write
anything down makes the mind more concentrated”.
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